Direct constraint on the Higgs-charm coupling from a search for Higgs boson decays into charm quarks with the ATLAS detector

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for Higgs boson decays into charm quarks using ATLAS data, setting constraints on the Higgs-charm coupling and comparing it to the Higgs-bottom coupling.

Contribution

It provides the first direct constraint on the Higgs-charm coupling from LHC data, improving understanding of the Higgs interaction with charm quarks.

Findings

Observed upper limit of 26 times the Standard Model prediction for Higgs to charm decays.

Constraint on the charm Yukawa coupling modifier |κ_c| < 8.5 at 95% CL.

The Higgs-charm coupling is weaker than the Higgs-bottom coupling at 95% CL.

Abstract

A search for the Higgs boson decaying into a pair of charm quarks is presented. The analysis uses proton-proton collisions to target the production of a Higgs boson in association with a leptonically decaying $W$ or $Z$ boson. The dataset delivered by the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb$^{-1}$. Flavour-tagging algorithms are used to identify jets originating from the hadronisation of charm quarks. The analysis method is validated with the simultaneous measurement of $WW,WZ$ and $ZZ$ production, with observed (expected) significances of $2.6$ ($2.2$) standard deviations above the background-only prediction for the $(W/Z)Z(\to c\bar{c})$ process and $3.8$ ($4.6$) standard deviations for the $(W/Z)W(\to cq)$ process. The $(W/Z)H(\to c \bar{c})$ search yields an observed (expected) upper limit of $26$ ($31$) times the predicted Standard Model cross-section times branching fraction for a Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV, corresponding to an observed (expected) constraint on the charm Yukawa coupling modifier $|\kappa_c| < 8.5 (12.4)$, at the 95% confidence level. A combination with the ATLAS $(W/Z)H, H\to b\bar{b}$ analysis is performed, allowing the ratio $\kappa_c / \kappa_b$ to be constrained to less than 4.5 at the 95% confidence level, smaller than the ratio of the $b$- and $c$-quark masses, and therefore determines the Higgs-charm coupling to be weaker than the Higgs-bottom coupling at the 95% confidence level.